'When the public voted for him, they voted against me': In election's wake, fears of racial conflict return

Reports of racially charged incidents spiked almost immediately after the election.
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After the presidential election, racial-confrontation incidents have surfaced at schools, jobs, and universities in Arizona, including Arizona State University's Tempe campus.(Photo: Michael Schennum The Republic)

Lydia Guzman remembers it well, hearing a woman behind her speak those words.Guzman and her mother were chatting in Spanish at the checkout line of a supermarket in Glendale when a woman behind them interrupted.

"Speak English," Guzman recalls the woman saying. "In this country we speak English."

Guzman, a fourth-generation Mexican-American born in Glendale, California, was incensed.

"Mind your own damn business. How is that for English?" Guzman remembers telling the woman, adding that she also threw in an expletive at the end.

The confrontation came not during the presidential campaign tinged with talk of deportation and border walls, or in the tense aftermath of Donald Trump's election win.

It happened around 2008, when raw emotions over illegal immigration were on full display in Arizona.

Laws aimed at driving undocumented immigrants out of Arizona were rolling through the state Legislature, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was sending squads of deputies into mostly Latino neighborhoods to find and arrest undocumented immigrants, and angry protests between groups of undocumented-immigrant supporters and opponents threatened to erupt into violence.

The vitriol had actually died down in recent years, Guzman and others agreed. Now she fears the same raw emotions the state saw in the past are bubbling up again in the wake of the presidential election.

The number of messages on her Facebook page from friends experiencing harassment and intimidation spiked after the election, said Guzman, a longtime immigrant advocate. One Hispanic friend described being confronted by people saying they would drive him in handcuffs to the border. (He said he replied, "Thank you. I was planning a shopping trip!")

In the wake of the election, similar incidents have surfaced at schools, jobs, and university campuses, and not always with such pithy responses.

Zahra Lalwani Lasee, a 33-year-old doctor of optometry, said people frequently ask her where she is from.

"I look ethnic and they wonder what is your ethnicity," she said. She was born in Pakistan and came to the U.S. when she was 5.

"But I am proud to tell them. I think people should know Pakistanis are nice," Lasee said.

However, when a new patient asked her that question the day after the election, Lasee was shocked by his response.

"I think yesterday the country has spoken and we want you to leave," she recalls the man saying.

Lasee said the man left, and she didn't say anything. She sobbed while recalling the incident, even though a week had passed since it happened.

"The ethics of my faith say I do not respond to unless my life is threatened," said Lasee, who is Muslim.

She believes the man was reacting directly to President-elect Donald Trump's campaign promise to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.

Now she is considering moving to another country.

"When the public voted for him, they voted against me," Lasee said.

Tensions emerge at schools

Much of the local worry about racial conflict in the wake of the election was distilled into a single incident of graffiti in a bathroom stall at Arizona State University.

Photos shared on social media showed the threat, scrawled in marker: "We don't want you N------ here," followed by "get out before we kill you #Trump2016 KKK."

In response, university officials issued a statement denouncing the graffiti at the Palo Verde East dormitory, which was soon removed, and noting the safety of students is the university's "top priority."

"The university undertakes extensive efforts to ensure that our community is inclusive and respectful of everyone," the statement said. "ASU is a place where open debate can thrive and honest disagreements can be explored, but not when hateful rhetoric is used. This is not who we are."

But Renee Young, of Chino Valley, Calif., is not assured.

Young said her son, who is black, is a senior. He has always felt safe at ASU. But after the graffiti was found, he texted her a picture, prompting Young to email the university out of concern for his safety.

"Now he doesn't feel safe," said Young, who asked that her son's full name not be published. "He stayed inside all weekend."

If the harassment continues, she is considering pulling her son out of ASU.

Young said a university official called her to let her know that the graffiti had been removed and the university was taking measures to ensure the safety of students. But she would like to see ASU's president, Michael Crow, make a public statement "renouncing all this."

"Still scared of being called racist? May we suggest not caring anymore! Trump didn't, right?" one flier said.

ASU officials said in a written statement that the fliers were "saddening" and did "not represent the views of the ASU community."

There have been reports of post-election hostility and harassment at many local schools as well.

Marian Randall-Rideaux drove straight to Boulder Creek High School in Anthem north of Phoenix after receiving a text message from her daughter, Myel, telling her a male student shoved her on the way to her first-period class the morning after the election.

"There are people in my school being stupid about this election. It’s making me feel uncomfortable and I was even pushed today by people wearing those Make America Great Again hats," the text said.

In an interview, Myel said she didn't know the student. But she believes he shoved her because she is black.

Later that day during a class discussion about the outcome of the election, she said several students also made derogatory comments about Mexicans and Muslims.

"All Mexicans need to leave our country and Muslims are going to become terrorists and we need to get rid of them all," she quoted one as saying.

Randall-Rideaux said she met with an assistant principal, Jay Kopas, for nearly two hours that day but he did not seem to take the incident seriously.

"He pretty much said there is nothing I can do," Randall-Rideaux said.

Monica Allread, director of communications for Deer Valley Unified School District, which includes Boulder Creek, said school officials did investigate the complaint.

School officials viewed hallway video in the area where the student said it happened but could not find it. They also tried to track down the student who Myel said shoved her but could not find him.

"They took it seriously," she said.

“Now he doesn't feel safe. He stayed inside all weekend.”

Renee Young of Chino Valley, Calif., on her son, an ASU student who is black, after racist graffiti was discovered in a Tempe campus dorm

The school's principal, Lauren Sheahan, also met with Randall-Rideaux for an hour on Wednesday, after Randall-Rideaux made a statement the night before at the school board meeting that school officials were not taking the matter seriously.

The principal informed Randall-Rideaux that as a result of the complaint she plans to bring back a diversity group at the school.

"The outcome ultimately was a positive one," she said.

On Tuesday, Robert Ryan III, the principal of Brophy College Preparatory, a Catholic high school in Phoenix, sent a letter to parents calling for unity in the wake of the election.

Some Latino students "arrived to school on Wednesday (after Election Day) to be asked whether they had started packing yet and how they felt about January 19th being their last day at Brophy," Ryan wrote, referring to Trump's plan to begin deporting 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants, beginning with criminals, immediately after being sworn into office on Jan. 20.

"Some of our African American and Muslim students and their families have been subject to comments that are not repeatable," Ryan continued.

On the other hand, "some Brophy students wearing Trump buttons or wearing Make America Great Again hats have been called racists, and others have felt unable to express their reasons for supporting Mr. Trump without reprisal or judgement," Ryan wrote.

The letter concluded with comments Ryan made to students during the school's annual prayer service, in which he condemned the objectification of women, the stereotyping of Mexicans, Muslims or immigrants, "or anyone else for that matter," the mocking of people with disabilities, and finally, "making assumptions about others because of how they voted, or how you think they voted."

"Clearly, we are all called to healing and to a spirit of unity," Ryan wrote, adding, "Let us pray for the success of President-elect Donald Trump and that all elected officials work together to promote and protect the common good."

Signs of encouragement

Guzman, the immigrant advocate, said she is hopeful the groundswell of post-election hostility will be short lived.

"We are still hurting from all the wounds from the campaign. It’s going to take some time to heal," she said.

“It seems as though the lid has come off the genie's bottle and and now we are hearing unfortunately about incidents that are inspired by hatred, bigotry and prejudice,”

Carlos Galindo-Elvira, director of the Arizona regional office of the Anti-Defamation League

She noted that hostility toward immigrants died down in the wake of Arizona's passage of the immigration-enforcement law known as SB 1070 in 2010, when a series of boycotts and an exodus of Latinos prompted business, religious and other groups to come together and prevent more hard-line immigration legislation from moving forward in the Legislature.

Carlos Galindo-Elvira, director of the Arizona regional office of the Anti-Defamation League, said he is disturbed by how the outcome of the election appears to have emboldened people to express hatred.

"It seems as though the lid has come off the genie's bottle and and now we are hearing unfortunately about incidents that are inspired by hatred, bigotry and prejudice," he said.

At the same time, he said he was encouraged by the many calls his office has received in recent days from people who want to get involved in the Anti-Defamation League's work fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry and promoting civil discourse.

People are calling and saying, "I am scared and I want to help others so they are not scared," Galindo-Elvira said.

There have been other signs of encouragement.

The International Rescue Committee has seen a tenfold increase in people offering to help resettle refugees, compared with this time last year, said Nicky Walker, the organization's Phoenix development director.

The outpouring of support, she said, is "in direct relationship to the negative messages that have been given about immigrants and refugees in particular."

Some are individuals who have donated money, others are religious groups interested in sponsoring a refugee family, she said.

At least a dozen people have also called in the past week to offer to host a refugee family at their home for Thanksgiving, she said.

"They want as a family to better understand who refugees are and they want to extend that welcome," Walker said. "They want to make sure the refugees know they are welcome in our community, and what better way to do that than to open your own home on Thanksgiving?"